Response suppression and decision-making in association football referees

Inhibitory control, a cornerstone of executive function, is hypothesized to play a pivotal role in sports decision-making by regulating information processing and behavioural control. This study explores association football referees' inhibitory control and decision-making across different levels of expertise. Utilizing the Stop-Signal Task (SST) to assess response suppression and a video-based decision-making task, we investigated whether higher-level referees would demonstrate superior performance in both domains. Participants included 24 football referees from the Spanish Football Federation, divided into recreational (n = 12) and sub-elite (n = 12) levels. The findings revealed no significant differences in decision-making outcomes between the groups. No significant differences were observed across expertise levels in reaction and decision times. However, sub-elite referees exhibited better response suppression capabilities, as indicated by lower Stop-Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), suggesting enhanced inhibitory control. Correlational analyses between SST and decision-making variables showed minimal associations, indicating the complex nature of decision-making beyond inhibitory control. A further analysis, segregating referees based on their response suppression capacity, highlighted that referees with higher response suppression made more accurate disciplinary decisions than those with lower response suppression. This study underscores the importance of response suppression in the cognitive skillset of football referees, suggesting a subtle association between response suppression and decision-making. Among other future applications, the potential of training to enhance response suppression and its impact on in-game decision-making performance should be explored.